Manager of Applications - Ambulatory Population, Health Interoperability, & Patient Engagement

Kern Medical has been a community cornerstone since its founding in 1867. Today, we are an acute care teaching center with 222 beds, offering the only advanced trauma care between Fresno and Los Angeles. Kern Medical offers a range of primary, specialty, and multi-specialty services including high-risk pregnancy care, inpatient psychiatric services integrated with county mental health programs, and a growing network of outpatient clinics providing personalized patient-centered wellness care.  Kern Medical cares for 15,500 inpatients and 125,000 clinic patients a year. 

Career Opportunities within Kern Medical include many benefits such as: 

• New Hire Premium: 6% of base rate of pay, matched up to 6% if contributed to Deferred Compensation Plan.
• A Comprehensive Benefits Package: includes Holidays, Paid Time Off, Retirement, Medical, Dental, Vision and Life Insurance.

Position: Manager of Applications – Ambulatory, Population Health, Interoperability and Patient Engagement

Distinguishing Characteristics:

The Manager of Applications will work with supervision from the Director of IT Administration Applications in performing a variety of administrative, technical, and supervisory work in the Information Technology organization. The Applications Manager oversees assigned applications which may include Kern’s main Electronic Health record, any Legacy systems, and third-party Applications. The manager will provide leadership to the team and collaborate across departmental boundaries to ensure IT goals are met on time and within budget.

Essential Functions:

• Oversees lifecycle upgrades, testing, and downtime procedures for ambulatory modules.
• Manages projects and the implementations of new modules and features which augment or add to the Ambulatory, Population Health, Interoperability, Provider Engagement, Patient Engagement Applications.
• Manages team members and addresses any conflicts or grievances in a timely manner with support from the Director of IT Administration Applications. Serves as a resource to team members and assists in troubleshooting, mentoring, and escalation of issues as required.
• Analyzes the workflow needs for projects including requirements analysis, evaluations, and recommendations for available options, implementation, enhancements, and support.
• Identifies potential problems or barriers for the project and communicates to management in a timely manner.
• Monitors project status and ensures that appropriate project monitoring tasks are implemented and utilized.
• Develops test plans and ensures they are appropriately executed.
• Provides status reports and updates on aspects of the project as requested by management.
• Assists with all phases of development from design to implementation leading to the ability to solve complex system/technical issues.
• Handles personnel issues for team - including performance evaluations, hiring, disciplinary action and training needs, etc.
• Assigns team member workloads, tasks and project assignments.
• Participates in appropriate user forums, planning sessions, status meetings, department meetings to provide a Health Information Technology perspective on pending activities and strategic initiatives.
• Evaluates upgrade documentation to determine implementation tasks for developing detail project plan.
• Acts as an interface between end-users and Information Technology department.
• Facilitates the evaluation of all applications failures and corrective actions as necessary to guarantee system reliability, accuracy, and quality of performance on a continuing basis.
• Other duties as assigned

Employment Standards:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience required. Degree in Computer Science or Information Systems a plus.  Advance degree is a plus.
• 5 years of experience in Healthcare Information Systems, with practical experience in healthcare operations and systems analysis required.
• 3 years of management/lead experience is required.
• Proven experience with Clinical Ambulatory Applications and Patient Engagement is required.
• Technical knowledge of HL7 interfaces, integration, operating systems, and conversions is required.

Knowledge of:

• An understanding of the healthcare applications suite and their place in the acute care, physician, ambulatory and ancillary settings.
• technical troubleshooting, code debugging, and problem-solving skills

Ability to:

• Strong leadership characteristics and managerial skills that empower and develop others.
• Ability to plan, direct and coordinate all activities of an applications support group with minimal supervision.
• Communicate in a professional manner both in writing and verbally.
• Translate technical terminology at an expert level into terms understandable by management, department heads and performance level personnel.
• Ability to manage all phases of the project life cycle.
• Task oriented with strong organizational and project management skills to manage projects to a timely project completion.

Supplemental:

Dependent upon assignment, applicants may be required to pass an extensive background investigation, and be fingerprinted.  Disqualification for felony, misdemeanor, and traffic offenses will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

All Kern Medical employees are designated “Disaster Service Workers” through state and local laws (CA Government Code Sec. 3100-3109 and Ordinance Code Title 2 - Administration, Ch. 2.66 Emergency Services.) As Disaster Service Workers, all county employees are expected to remain at work, or to report for work as soon as practicable following a significant emergency or disaster.

If position responsibilities require driving a personal vehicle, then possession of a current valid California Driver’s License and adherence to the Kern County Hospital Authority Vehicle Use and Driving Standard Policy (ENG-EC-119) is required.

If position responsibilities require driving a vehicle owned, leased or rented by Kern Medical, then possession of a current valid California Driver’s license, a signed authorization for Release of Drivers Record Information and adherence to the Kern County Hospital Authority Vehicle Use and Driving Standard Policy (ENG-EC-119) is required.